How do we build a climate movement that wins?

One of Extinction Rebellion’s founders, Roger Hallam, has published his ideas on how to build a movement that can win real change. Sadie Robinson responds with ideas on how that movement can challenge the forces set against it

And pressure from campaigners meant that last week parliament agreed that we are facing a “climate emergency”.

XR has been a big success and the ideas of those behind it should be taken seriously. Hallam’s booklet, Common Sense for the 21st Century, looks at how to organise, what actions are most effective, and how to win real change.

He argues that whether we become extinct “largely depends upon whether revolutionary changes happen in the next decade”. And he says that the focus must be on organising “mass participation civil disobedience”.

“We are looking at the slow and agonising suffering and death of billions of people,” writes Hallam. “The structural change we need has to happen too fast for a reformist strategy.”

So what about the forces ranged against us—the fossil fuel industries, the rich and the governments that back them, and the repressive apparatus of the state? All are barriers to radical change. How do we overcome them?

He stresses the importance of “ordinary people seeing people like them (as opposed to activists) declaring a climate emergency”.

It’s right to say that we need radical change to tackle climate change. And it’s heartening that activists are thinking about how to involve more working class people in the movement.

So what about the forces ranged against us—the fossil fuel industries, the rich and the governments that back them, and the repressive apparatus of the state? All are barriers to radical change. How do we overcome them?

“After one or two weeks following this plan, the historical records show that a regime is highly likely to collapse or is forced to enact structural change,” he says.

This is too optimistic. Hallam says that mass civil disobedience forces the government to “agree with us or repress us”. He rightly points out that repression can provoke more people to take action.

But victory or repression aren’t the only possible ­outcomes. Governments are expert at appearing to agree to demands only to backtrack once the heat is off. They may agree to some things but demand compromises in return.

Hallam says the movement won’t compromise. But there will be disagreements about what is an acceptable outcome. And if campaigns don’t seem to be making headway, some people can become ­disillusioned and drop out.

Repression doesn’t always push more people into activity—it can scare people off. Hallam doesn’t say how non-violent protesters should respond in such a situation.

The risk of repression comes across as remote, largely because of how Hallam treats the cops. “A proactive approach to the police is an effective way of enabling mass civil disobedience,” he writes. Police may not be aggressive “as long as activists are civil and open with them”.

The police exist to protect the rich and their system. It’s dangerous to think they could be won over to supporting or sympathising with our side

It can seem that the recent XR blockades back this up. But ­history shows the opposite. Time after time it is police who initiate violence against ­protesters, not “violent” activists.

So the citizens’ assembly could be “set up in competition” with the government but “parliament would remain”. Why? Because this would help win the “hearts and minds” of wider layers of people who don’t want radical change.

“The rebellion has to morph at the last moment into a general rebellion,” says Hallam. This will take argument and organisation. Pandering to the right, who will fight to limit the radical change we need, makes winning this harder.

Working class people and the poor have the most to gain from fighting climate change.

The defeat of revolutions isn’t inevitable. But climate chaos is if capitalism continues